Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Micah slapped me on the back. “Let that go, yeah,” he said with a nod in Lick’s direction.
Then he continued what he’d been telling me before we walked out. “Anyway, King Salazar was eating lunch with Thatcher Shephard, and he spotted them. Recognized them immediately. He even got a pic with his phone and sent it to Blaise. Blaise had him and Thatcher follow them. They are currently at a motel in Greensboro, Georgia. Checked into room 104 under the name of Calvin Harris from fucking Alabama. And get this—the bastard has a Southern accent.”
I looked at him once we were both on our bikes before starting it up. “Are they going to keep them there?” I asked, the first ray of hope I could cling to. Shutting out the fact that Lick was a couple of bikes over.
“The entire Georgia branch is there now and have the place surrounded. They’ve not been seen, and Murphy has another man with him who’s watching the place. He’s armed and staked out near their room in a dark black vehicle. He followed them from the restaurant.”
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out. I was going to get her back.
Our engines roared to life, and we headed to the airstrip that Blaise Hughes used when flying in and out of Miami.
The fear that she didn’t want to come back to me was in the back of my head. Why was she traveling with him and not trying to get free? Why hadn’t she found a phone and called me? If he had her out in the open like this, maybe she wasn’t being held captive, but had chosen to go with him.
I shut that thought down before letting it fester.
Salem loved me. I might not deserve it, but she did. She would want to return to me. If she had left me, then it was because of Nixie’s pregnancy. When she found out that the baby wasn’t mine, she’d want to come back. The only obstacle in our future was no more. We could build our house. The one I’d dreamed of when I was twenty-one years old. Have a kid or two. People had them at her age all the time.
I didn’t know what war we had ahead of us with the Murphys, but one thing at a time.
First, I had to get her back.
20
Salem
I wasn’t sure how many hours I had stared at the white wall while listening to Brady breathe annoyingly loud on the other bed. It was just shy of snoring, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t sleep.
I’d gotten sick after eating only two bites of food today and gone to the restroom at the restaurant and thrown up. Then, this evening, when I’d been in the shower, I had gotten dizzy and had to sit down for several minutes.
My lack of sleep shouldn’t have been an issue today. I’d slept both on the flight and again in the car.
Even if being so much closer to home was better, it didn’t give me back Rome. The dark place I’d found myself in mentally wasn’t going away. That had to be what was making me ill.
The relief of being back in the States gave me false hope, and I knew it. While Georgia and Florida were neighbors, Miami was nowhere near it. The distance between the two was well over three hundred miles, and we weren’t on the state line. We were hours from it. I’d have a better chance being found in Boston, which was thousands of miles from Miami. Brady had been right about a small Southern town being a good place to get lost.
My thoughts went from one thing to another, bouncing around and all circling back to Rome. The life I had wanted with him since I had been a girl. The one I had lost a second time. Tears burned my eyes, and I sniffled into the pillow, not wanting to wake Brady. He might talk, and I’d be forced to hear him. I loathed the sound of his voice—Irish and Southern. If it was coming out of his mouth, then it was the bane of my existence.
For a moment, I had felt sorry for him today. His life had been horribly sad and tragic, but he didn’t have to become the man he was. He had chosen to be a criminal. And all for money. Just like Eamon.
The emotions that memories of him stirred in me were all but faded now. Every truth I’d learned took a little more away until there wasn’t anything left.
I had mourned the loss of the life we’d shared for a year. Thinking I had lost my best friend, yet all that time, I never even knew the man. I’d loved his facade. He was as good at being a chameleon as his brother was. He’d fooled me completely.